Includes bibliographical references (p. [429]-438) and index

Pt. 1. Keke's miracle : Soso -- Crazy Beso -- Brawlers, wrestlers and choirboys -- A hanging in Gori -- The poet and the priesthood -- The "young man with the burning eyes" -- Battle of the dormitories : Soso versus Father "Black spot" -- The weatherman : parties and princes -- Stalin goes underground : Konspiratsia -- "I'm working for the Rothschilds!" : fire, massacre and arrest in Batumi -- Pt. 2. The prisoner -- The frozen Georgian : Siberian exile -- Bolshevik temptress -- 1905 : king of the mountain -- 1905 : fighters, urchins and dressmakers -- 1905 : the Mountain Eagle : Stalin meets Lenin -- The man in grey : marriage, mayhem (and Sweden) -- Pirate and father -- Stalin in London -- Kamo goes insane : the game of bandits and cossacks -- The tragedy of Kato : Stalin's stony heart -- Boss of the black city : plutocrats, protection-rackets and piracy -- Louse racing, murder and madness : prison games -- "River cock" and the noblewoman -- "The milkman" : was Stalin a Tsarist agent? -- Pt. 3. Two lost fiancées and a pregnant peasant -- The Central Committee and "Glamourpuss" the schoolgirl -- "Don't forget that name and be very wary!" -- The escapist : Kamo's leap and the last bank robbery -- Travels with the mysterious Valentina -- Vienna, 1913 : the wonderful Georgian, the Austrian artist and the Old Emperor -- The secret policeman's ball : betrayal in drag -- Pt. 4. "Darling, I'm in desperate straits" -- 1914 : arctic sex comedy -- The hunter -- The Robinson Crusoe of Siberia -- Stalin's reindeer-propelled sleigh and a Siberian son -- Pt. 5. 1917 spring : floundering leader -- 1917 summer : sailors on the streets -- 1917 autumn : Soso and Nadya -- 1917 winter : the countdown -- Glorious October 1917 : the bungled uprising -- Power : Stalin out of the shadows

The shadowy journey from obscurity to power of the Georgian cobbler's son who became the Red Tsar--the man who, along with Hitler, remains the modern personification of evil: a merciless psychopath who was, as well, a consummate politician, the dynamic world statesman who helped create and industrialize the USSR, outplayed Churchill and Roosevelt, and defeated Hitler? Historian Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, turbulent boy born into poverty, of doubtful parentage, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a fanatical revolutionary. A mastermind of bank robbery, protection rackets, arson, piracy and murder, he was equal parts terrorist, intellectual and brigand. The paranoid criminal underworld was Stalin's natural habitat, and murderous banditry and political gangsterism, combined with pitiless ideology, enabled Stalin to dominate the Kremlin--and create the USSR in his flawed image.--From publisher description

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